by José de la Isla
José de la Isla
MEXICO CITY – Do you remember the 1992 election when Bill Clinton adjusted his policy thinking to accommodate President H.W. Bush’s big vision of a free-trade zone for all of the Americas?
Clinton’s Fleetwood Mac vision had to turn on a dime, and he did it successfully. Clinton even had his advisor Henry Cisneros come to Mexico City for a private chat about it with President Carlos Salinas.
Eventually, a North American Free Trade Agreement was signed under President Clinton, one that excluded labor issues and had weak national provisions for Mexico’s development.
The treaty was like having cause without anticipating effect.
It was one, but not the only, reason for the rise of immigration to the United States, especially by the most marginal Mexican populations.
Then September 11th closed the border, like damming a stream where a freer flow of back-and-forth movement by job-seeking people had occurred before.
Where Latin American economic development had been a priority, it receded to near zero as “terrorism” and military solutions became the hot buttons.
Unfortunately, the national mentality changed also toward all of our neighbors to the south. Since that time, Democrats have retrenched and Republican interests have narrow-focused on free-trade expansion. Neither is a vision for a new North America, especially one where the old problems have not gone away.
We are back again where we were before the 1992 election.
In the current environment, our presidential candidates show little vision about the geography issue. Do they know we are North Americans? That the Western Hemisphere matters to our future? That Mexico is the gateway?
Will someone, please – for our own sake – ask the top candidates what that vision is.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney recently issued a seven-point plan of action on the Western Hemisphere. He touched on our vital interests in energy, trade and security. Much of it rehashes, rhetorically, longstanding concerns (Castro, trade, “must rebuild relationships,” etc.)
However, it was refreshing to see the confession, “since the terror of 9/11, America has become so preoccupied with other regions that we have forgotten our friends in our own hemisphere.”
Indeed, the candidates in the presidential campaign of 2008 can serve the nation best when they focus on a national and hemispheric vision. It’s time to sober up the jingoistic attitudes setting in. Illegal immigration, and the pogroms that have been coddled and allowed, are detrimental to our standing in the world and to our own future.
Angry voters with cynical beliefs, increased retrenchment, isolationism and the weird 19th century notions about the Americas – is that the nation the presidential candidates want to lead?
To change that course will take guts.
An addled public waits to see which one is not bidding to become President Chicken.
A phrase went around last July before the Mexican presidential elections here. In private conversations, people said it was not possible to make one good president out of their top three contenders.
The U.S. political scene seems to be going in the same direction. The seven declared Democrats and eight Republicans in the race are watering down, not improving, the public’s understanding about what kind of future we can build with respect to our neighbors.
It’s the vision thing, again.
Unless someone comes along with clear insight, we will be discussing this again, in similar terms, in 2012.
In the 1992 Clinton-Bush campaign, we got to the starting gate. In 2008, it seems we are there again for the long-delayed national debate.
[José de la Isla, author of “The Rise of Hispanic Political Power” (Archer Books, 2003), writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service. E-mail joseisla3@yahoo.com.] c 2007
